Our guest for our next #ConnectChat, taking place Tuesday, March 13, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. EDT, will be Robin J. Phillips (@RobinJP) of the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism , who will discuss social media for business journalists.

As digital director at Reynolds, Robin sets strategy and oversees the center's website, BusinessJournalism.org, and its social media platforms. She also teaches journalists how to use social media tools to expand their sources and find new stories on their beats.

Among the topics Robin will address: what social media tools business journalists should be using; how they can use the different social media tools; how to tailor content to different audiences; the unique challenges of business journalists, and freelancers specifically; tips for PR professionals on how they can reach business journalists; and more.

To join us, follow the #ConnectChat hashtag to view all the updates from @RobinJP, @ProfNet and the rest of the chat participants. We’ll start of the conversation with a few questions for Robin, but feel free to jump in with questions at any time.

If you don’t have a Twitter account or won’t be able to make it to the chat, you can read a recap on ProfNet Connect the following day. To view past #ConnectChat recaps, click here.

About Robin J. Phillips

Robin joined Reynolds in August 2009, after working as online community manager for AZCentral.com, the website of the Arizona Republic in Phoenix. She has also served as deputy business editor at the Arizona Republic and Newsday, as well as editor for BusinessWeek Online’s small-business channel.

Robin teaches a course on the Business & Future of Journalism at the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications, was an adjunct professor of new media at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York, and has presented at various journalism organizations on the use of social media as a reporting tool. She is a co-founder of #wjchat, a weekly Twitter-based gathering of Web journalists.

No company is immune from a crisis – it can happen at any time to any brand. How the company handles the crisis will dictate whether the brand survives.

In our latest ConnectChat, “Branding Diva” Karen Post (@BrandingDiva) shared her expertise on how companies can protect their brands against a crisis and rally in the face of disaster.

Post is the author of two books, “Brand Turnaround: How Brands Go Bad and Return to Glory” (McGraw-Hill 2011) and “Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands That Stick to Customers’ Minds” (AMACOM 2004). Since 2000, she has led Brain Tattoo Branding, a firm that provides creative and strategic services to start, grow and manage brands. She is a sought-after speaker and a regular branding contributor on FOX TV.

Following is a recap of the chat:

ProfNet: Karen, thanks so much for joining us today!

Post: It’s great to be with you, spreading the good word on branding. I just did a shot of coffee, so I can type fast.

ProfNet: I’m on my third bottle of Snapple, so I should be able to keep up. I really enjoyed “Brand Turnaround.” It’s fascinating to see brands everyone has written off turn their reputations around.

Post: Yes, so many brands we know and love were on death row and they found redemption: Apple, Ford, Robert Downey Jr., even the Red Cross.

ProfNet: Let’s start with the basics. What is branding?

Post: Branding, as a verb, is the action required to navigate your image, reputation and identity. Your brand is what your market, customers, peers, and vendors think about you, feel about you and expect from you.

@bikespoke: It’s all about ROC – return on connections.

ProfNet: What is the difference between marketing and branding?

Post: The different between marketing and branding: Marketing is the process. Your brand is the result.

ProfNet: A brand crisis can happen to any company, large or small, right?

Post: No one is immune to a brand shakeup. It’s all relative. It can be an early obituary if you are not ready. Prepare for potholes.

ProfNet: It seems a day doesn’t go by that we don’t hear about a brand scandal. What do you attribute this to? What role does social media play?

Post: All media is a factor, but especially online. Because it’s 24/7, it can spread like wildfire. And often it’s indexed by search engines, and that time you drank three glasses of wine and danced on the table at Chili’s, it’s there for your great grandkids to see.

ProfNet: That brings up another point: In this digital age, a brand has to always be “on.” Mistakes can no longer be swept under the rug.

Post: When a crisis hits, speed and a fast-lane response is key to a brand’s health. Like I say, 48 hours is the new 72 hours.

ProfNet: And even 48 hours seems like a lot. Why so long?

Post: Great point. It’s often critical for a brand to show up and say, “We know there’s a situation, we are gathering all the facts, and are on it.”

ProfNet: In your book, you talk about “game changers,” strategies that brands can use to turn their image around. Can you give us an example?

Post: There are seven game changers. The first one is: Take responsibility. This does not mean saying you are guilty. It means showing up, letting folks know you share their concerns, and your goal is to find the answer.

ProfNet: Can you give us an example of a brand that did this the right way?

Post: Two excellent examples are Taco Bell. For a few weeks they were Taco Hell, all from a crazy meatless lawsuit. They not only responded, but turned a bad deal into a lot of “on-brand,” lighthearted, fun publicity. Another good example is the Dallas Mavericks and Mark Cuban. They were a lame franchise – empty seats and losing money. Cuban’s leadership was key. His focus on customers and then performance counts. The team played well and won a championship.

@bikespoke: Toyota was quick to respond with recall issues, but misinformation damaged the brand.

Post: That’s for sure. Often, the public pole-vaults to conclusions. Time is a good medicine for brands in the mud, too.

ProfNet: What are some brands that got it wrong?

Post: The News of the World, Borders, Saab, Oldsmobile, Lehman Brothers. The verdict is still out on Lindsay Lohan, Herman Cain, Charlie Sheen and Tom Brady’s wife. ;-)

@bikespoke: BP, BP, BP.

@ContractAdviser: Tylenol and tamper-evident packaging (good); Krispy Kreme ignoring the coffee business (bad).

ProfNet: What could they have done differently?

Post: Reading my book helps. Seriously, many brand deaths are from inside the company, operations, over-leverage and sloppy conduct.

@stephfierman: Social media fails can be corrected (t.co/H40A0nH0), but a brand must move quickly and sincerely.

Post: Yep! Helmets and seatbelts are required, and the need for speed in brand turnaround is critical.

@gnosisarts: I’m seeing how important internal communications is to organizational health. We’re seeing companies die from inside more often than from without.

Post: Like a car, what’s under the hood -- and having fuel (resources) in the tank -- matters in brand turnaround.

ProfNet:  What are the biggest mistakes companies make when it comes to their brand?

Post: Deadly killers: Wrong spokesperson (Tony Hayward), not preparing for potholes, operating in denial mode. At the first signs of bad, get on it!

ProfNet: Well, that’s all the time we have. Thank you so much, Karen, for sharing your branding wisdom.

Post: Thanks so much! This was a blast. If you love branding, please check out my blog at www.brandingdiva.com/blog

ProfNet: And thanks to everyone who retweeted, asked questions and commented. I always love when you participate! We now return you to our regularly scheduled tweets. 

No company is immune from a crisis – it can happen at any time to any brand. How the company handles the crisis will dictate whether the brand survives.

For our next #ConnectChat, branding expert Karen Post (@BrandingDiva) will share the strategies that will protect your brand against a crisis, and how a “brand gone bad” can rally in the face of disaster.

The chat will take place Tuesday, Feb. 14, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. EST on Twitter. To join the chat, just follow the #ConnectChat hashtag to view all updates from @BrandingDiva, @ProfNet and the rest of the chat participants. We'll start off the chat with a few questions to get the conversation going, but feel free to jump in at any time.

If you do not have a Twitter account or won’t be able to make it to the chat, you can find a recap on ProfNet Connect the following day. To view past #ConnectChat recaps, click here.

About Karen Post

Known as the “The Branding Diva,” Karen is the author of two books, “Brand Turnaround: How Brands Go Bad and Return to Glory” (McGraw-Hill 2011) and “Brain Tattoos: Creating Unique Brands That Stick to Customers’ Minds” (AMACOM 2004).

Since 2000, Karen has led Brain Tattoo Branding, a firm that provides creative and strategic services to start, grow and manage brands. She is also a sought-after speaker who addresses global audiences, and was the first female American speaker to address the Saudi Arabian Airlines national conference in 2011.

Karen started her first business at age 22, and built two successful companies -- an award-winning ad agency and a legal communications firm specializing in high-stakes litigation. Throughout her career, her work has benefited diverse industries, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, including Albemarle, ACNielsen, Choice International, Cox Cable and Media, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, Xerox, Sara Lee, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble, along with many emerging businesses, trade associations, professional athletes, entertainers and politicians.

Karen is a regular branding commentator on FOX TV and has been featured in other business and marketing outlets, including FOX, NBC, Bloomberg TV, CBS’s “Early Show,” New York Times, New York Post, Fast Company, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Entrepreneur, Success Magazine and NPR.

With new websites and online tools popping up every day, it’s hard to keep track of all the resources out there for journalists. In our latest #ConnectChat, Mike Reilley (@journtoolbox), founder of the Society of Professional Journalists’ research site, The Journalist’s Toolbox, shared his expertise on how journalists can improve their reporting using online tools.

Reilley teaches several classes at DePaul University, including courses on online journalism, news editing, multiplatform news editing, reporting for converged newsrooms, online sports reporting and an intro to journalism. He was one of the 11 founding editors of ChicagoTribune.com, and serves as faculty adviser to DePaul's SPJ chapter, named National Student Chapter of the Year in 2011. He and his students run a weekly Twitter chat, #SPJchat, for the SPJ National office. The Thursday night discussions, which start at 7 p.m. CST, explore various issues in the journalism world.

Following are highlights of the chat:

ProfNet: For those not familiar with the Journalist’s Toolbox, can you tell us a little more about it?

Reilley: The Journalist’s Toolbox started as 10 links off an online news-writing syllabus when I taught at Medill in the late 1990s. I turned it into a dot-com in 2000, sold it to the American Press Institute in 2002, then resold to SPJ (Society of Professional Journalists) in 2007. SPJ has been a great home for the Toolbox and elevated what we can do with it. I update the site 2-3 times a week with helpful tools for journalists. The site is organized by beats/topics for newsrooms. We have a lot of election resources on the Toolbox right now.

ProfNet: What are some of the newest online tools for journalists?

Reilley: Storify is great for curating social media coverage of news stories. Here’s a Storify we did of the Blagojevich sentencing: t.co/mjyL1sRx. Here’s a Storify we did from the Chicago blizzard last February: t.co/YMCnS64o. Storify is free and a great way to create sidebars/reaction stories to supplement your reporting. I’ve also been toying with Dipity, a free tool that creates timelines. Students really like it. Delicious and Pinboard.in are great for bookmark links. Here’s how I use Delicious: www.delicious.com/mreilley. Some of my old favorites: PACER for court documents; Open Secrets for campaign fund tracking; Guidestar to track down Form 990s and public documents. Many public records sites are on this Journalist’s Toolbox page: t.co/8ELWILPH. PACER and Guidestar do have fees for public records.

@NewsworthyinDC: What are the most common missteps new journalist make?

Reilley: Credibility is a huge obstacle for young journalists. You have to double- and triple-check everything. Once you earn the readers' and editors' trust, you're set. Also: Don't be afraid to take stories nobody wants!

ProfNet: Great advice! Do as many as you can.

@meg_heckman: Any examples of tools that help news organizations foster community engagement?

Reilley: We just talked about this in class. I like Twitter chats (hashtags) as well as CoverItLive (free live-chat tool). Also, Storify local reaction to major news events (bin Laden's death). Search Trendsmap.com by ZIP Code.

ProfNet: You listed some good tools for journalists. Any others before we go to the next question?

Reilley: I like Hootsuite as my desktop Twitter client. You can manage up to four accounts for free. Hootsuite also has an iPhone app, though I use Twitter for the iPhone as my main mobile client. Other good mobile apps for journalists: Dragon Dictation, Convertbot, Wolfram Alpha, Pages, Numbers, Thesaurus, Factbook, Delicious bookmarks, Foursquare, Dropbox, Evernote, Photoshop Express, ReelDirector video editor, ProPrompter, Recorder, Recorder Pro, Garage Band, Soundcloud.

@meg_heckman: Our reporters are in love with SoundNote on the iPad 2. Any tutorials out there on using Wolfram Alpha?

Reilley: Never used SoundNote but will try it. I just used Wolfram trial and error to learn it. Search YouTube for a tutorial.

ProfNet: What about more popular sites, like Facebook and Twitter? How can journalists use those (or use them more strategically)?

Reilley: Facebook: Join groups/pages that may help you in your job. For example: I belong to Social Media Educators group. Create a page for readers to follow/interact with you. Nancy Loo of WGN-TV is great at this. Follow her and see. Twitter: Interact with readers. Share your stories/blogs that are published. Use social media curation to supplement your reporting. Hold online chats with a hashtag in your community about a story or issue you wrote about.

@bikespoke: Kred is an interesting new tool that helps you understand those who truly influence and connect.

Reilley: I will definitely check out Kred.

@comminternships: What multimedia tools do today's journalism students need to be equipped with when they walk out the door?

Reilley: They need to be able to write a basic news story, single-topic blog, edit video (Final Cut), edit audio (Garage Band/Audacity), build audio slideshows (Soundslides), podcast and use social media.

ProfNet: That's a lot to ask of them! Will they learn that in journalism school, or should they take other types of courses?

Reilley: Most good journalism schools teach software and tools in reporting/editing classes. Some students may take digital media outside. If your schools don't teach social media and technology, ask them to! We really pressed for this at DePaul and got it!

ProfNet: What’s the most challenging part of teaching social media to students?

Reilley: Getting them to look past Twitter and Facebook as just tools to talk about themselves or “open text” friends. It’s still a hard sell with some students, but they realize they must use social media to work in journalism. Each year it gets a bit easier to teach social media. More students are using Twitter coming into class than 2-3 years ago.

@comminternships: For me, it's teaching them that personal and professional shouldn't mix in a social media feed. Have a separate account for each. In other words, don't drunk tweet tonight and then tweet about a news story tomorrow.

Reilley: Or post drunk photos to your Facebook page! Ha!

@comminternships: One issue I'm finding in the classroom is students are more focused on the technology than on the writing -- or the grammar.

Reilley: Good point. I teach an editing class on Wednesday nights. Start with iPad grammar apps, but use a grammar book too.

ProfNet: Do you think reporters should have separate social media accounts, one for personal and one for work?

Reilley: Good question. It depends how much they use the accounts for personal sharing. If you live-tweet your life, then separate. But if you balance it out -- 70 percent professional and 30 personal personal -- one account could work. Also, don’t tie Twitter to Facebook and LinkedIn. They’re usually different audiences or redundant for those who follow you on all two or three.

@comminternships: I advocate for separate personal and professional accounts, especially for students, because their professional and personal widely diverge.

@SaleemChat: It may be prudent to have a separate account if you want to post about intensely personal parts of your life. I find it useful to separate accounts by activity, e.g., a separate chat account, and one for high-volume live-tweeting.

ProfNet: Will social media ever be a suitable replacement for traditional forms of reporting, or just another platform?

Reilley: Absolutely not. It supplements first-hand reporting. @acarvin of NPR talked about this at SPJ’s national conference this year. You can use Twitter or Facebook to crowdsource and develop sources/relationships anywhere, but social media doesn’t replace a first-person, one-on-one interview.

@thegrammarnazi: Nor does e-mail, students.

@SaleemChat: The "Z replaces Y, which replaces X" formula is wrong-headed. New tools supplement or round out ways to tell stories/engage.

ProfNet: Any tips for PR professionals wanting to connect with reporters on social media?

Reilley: Yes, follow the key media in your field and encourage them to follow back. Keep pitches short (140 characters!). The key to building a relationship with reporters is to give them relevant information and provide access. A good place for PR people to go and find journalists on social media is Muckrack.com. It’s organized by beats, outlets.

@SaleemChat: Keep pitches to 140 characters in email, too, with background below. I don't like to be pitched on Twitter, nor do others I know. Engage on matters of substance first. Ask how to pitch.

Reilley: Some do like to be pitched on Twitter. DM with a link. It’s easy to check and frees up clutter in email.

ProfNet: You also host the weekly #spjchat. Can you tell us more about that?

Reilley: Thanks! Yes, #spjchat has been on hiatus for a bit but will return in February with new guests. Follow @spjchat. The chat will be on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. CST, staring in February. @spjdepaul students and I run it: t.co/96iS7pND. We cover a wide range of journalism topics: ethics, social media, sports, copy editing, entertainment reporting, etc. @acarvin of NPR was the most popular guest. We archive the chat on Storify: storify.com/spjchat

ProfNet: That's about all the time we have today. Mike, thank you SO much for taking the time to answer our questions! And thank you to everyone who participated!

With new websites and online tools popping up every day, it’s hard to keep track of all the resources out there for journalists.

In our next #ConnectChat, Mike Reilley (@journtoolbox), founder of the Society of Professional Journalists’ research site, The Journalist’s Toolbox, will share his expertise on how journalists can improve their reporting using online tools.

The chat will take place on Twitter on Tuesday, Jan. 17, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. EST. To join the chat, just follow the #ConnectChat hashtag to view all updates from @journtoolbox, @ProfNet and the rest of the chat participants. We'll start off the chat with a few questions for Reilley to get the conversation going, but feel free to jump in at any time.

If you do not have a Twitter account or won’t be able to make it to the chat, you can find a recap on ProfNet Connect the following day. To view past #ConnectChat recaps, click here.

About Mike Reilley

Reilley teaches several classes at DePaul University, including courses on online journalism, news editing, multiplatform news editing, reporting for converged newsrooms, online sports reporting and an intro to journalism.

Reilley was one of the 11 founding editors of ChicagoTribune.com and launched the site The Red Line Project with his DePaul students in January 2011. He also serves as faculty adviser to DePaul's SPJ chapter, named National Student Chapter of the Year in 2011. He and his students also run a weekly Twitter chat, #SPJchat, for the SPJ National office. The weekly Thursday night discussions, which start at 7 p.m. CST, explore various issues in the journalism world.

Reilley is a former reporter and copy editor at the Los Angeles Times, was a news editor at WashingtonPost.com and ran the 2000 Summer Olympics copy desk for AOL. He has a master’s degree in journalism/newspaper-media management from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He graduated at the top of his class at Medill and received the Harrington Award, the school’s highest academic honor. He taught full-time at Medill from 1997 to 2000 and laid the groundwork for the school's online journalism curriculum. He also has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was editor of his college newspaper, The Daily Nebraskan.